The House in the Pines(52)

Maya bowed her head. “She sounds kind.”

“I didn’t make coffee in it until the next morning,” he said. “And when I did, when I went to fill it with water, I found a note she’d left me inside the little tank.” His mouth trembled. “I’m not going to tell you everything the letter said. But I will say that she apologized for the way she’d been acting. She thanked me for being her friend. And she said she was going to live with Frank in his cabin.”

Maya’s blood froze.

“Might not make sense to you or me, but she loved the guy.” Steven sounded resentful. He took a small sip of his beer, then set the rest at the edge of the table as if he was done.

Maya reached for her own drink but found it empty.

“I came here,” Steven said, “because you said you wanted to talk about Cristina’s painting. Her art. But I don’t think it’s good for me to speculate about what might have gone on between her and Frank. Nothing I can do about it anyway.”

“I understand,” Maya said as she reached for her purse. “I’m sorry.” She dropped her wallet on the floor.

“Are you all right?” He sounded tired, as if he’d only asked because he felt obligated.

“Fine.”

“Did you drive here?”

She shook her head. The waitress returned with the bill. “I got this,” Maya said.

“Sure you don’t want a ride?”

“No, thanks. I could use the walk.”

“Be careful,” he said.

“It’s not far,” she assured him.

“If you go to Frank’s cabin, I mean. I know you didn’t ask for my opinion, but if I were you, I’d stay away from that place.”





TWENTY-EIGHT




Maya wakes refreshed, birds singing in her window. The clock reads 10:42, much later than she usually sleeps. She yawns, turns over, content to sleep a little longer, because why not, it’s summer, but then she spots the wet clothes crumpled on her bedroom floor and remembers last night.

She bolts up. She had planned to tell her mom about the time she lost in the woods with Frank. She gets out of bed, hurries down the hall. The house is quiet, her mom in her room with the door closed.

Just as she’s about to knock, Maya thinks of the overnight shift she worked. Her mom could really use the sleep, and now that she’s paused here a moment, Maya asks herself what it is she will say.

She’s less sure of herself today, and last night is already feeling like a blur, a vague impression, almost as if Frank drugged her, but then—how could he have? It’s not like she ever tried his soup, or anything else at the cabin. Never drank or smoked anything. So she’d spaced out a few minutes here and there—is that really so unusual for her? She has been known, after all, to gaze out of windows rather than listening to her teachers at times and has missed many a bus stop due to daydreaming. She’s been this way since long before she met Frank.

Could someone like her really blame him for lost time?

She returns to her room. Maybe she’ll tell her mom later.



* * *



— Maya began packing for college weeks ago, then stopped after she met Frank. How strange to consider this now—that she actually thought about deferring. After all the work she poured into earning a full ride at BU.

What the hell was she thinking?

She resumes packing to distract herself from her uneasiness, and it works. Her thoughts turn to her soon-to-be dorm. Warren Towers is home to over 1,800 undergraduates, and in three days, she will be one of them, surrounded by people her age from all over the country and the world. Her new roommate is named Gina, she’s from San Francisco, and Maya can’t wait to meet her.

Each of them will have, on her half of the room, a narrow bed, a desk, a dresser, a shelf, and a slim closet. Not a lot of space, but Maya has plans for her side. She’ll hang her Salvador Dalí poster, the one of elephants on legs like stilts, and her cork bulletin board covered with photos, most of them of Aubrey and her. Maya will only have room for her favorites of everything at the dorms: CDs, clothes, decorations, and books, including, of course, the one her father wrote.

Her father’s book sits on her desk. She hasn’t looked at it much since meeting Frank. As she picks it up, she flashes back to last night, steam rising from their bowls at the table. Her father’s book is the last thing she remembers thinking of before she found herself walking in the rain with Frank.

It used to be that these pages made her think of her father, but now they bring back the smell of Frank’s cabin—his soup, the fire, the cold night air—so she leaves them behind. Tells herself she won’t have time to read the book anyway once classes start.

Moving on to her closet, she takes out a chunky sweater that will be good for fall, and her thoughts turn to fall in Boston. Cool days and crisp, glittering nights. Foliage in the city. Halloween parties. It’s like all the excitement she should have been feeling for the past few weeks is finally upon her, and now she can’t wait. Strange, she thinks, how she has thought of only Frank pretty much since the day they met, yet today it’s like all her outsized feelings for him—the longing, the jealousy—were a house of cards that suddenly collapsed.

Aubrey was right. She’d mistrusted him from the start. Which is probably—Maya suddenly realizes—why she wore the red dress: to bring to the surface what she had sensed in Frank before she even met him. That he was bad for her best friend. Maya can’t explain, much less excuse, the way she’s been acting these past few days, but she can apologize. They’ve argued over small things before, like what DVD to rent at the video store, but never anything like this.